


obwohls mir zu hell ist

by Rosse



Series: Assorted Character Drabbles of IDFK [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Song Inspired, flashfic, sort of but not really jiratsun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 13:45:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1430695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosse/pseuds/Rosse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"ich lass für dich das Licht an<br/>obwohls mir zu hell ist"</p><p>After Tsunade leaves, Jiraiya leaves a light on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	obwohls mir zu hell ist

When Tsunade leaves, Jiraiya leaves his balcony light on, glaring through the trees like a beacon. He can't sleep with light filtering into his bedroom, but he doesn't care, preferring instead to toss and turn and listen to every whistle of wind and unidentified clatter of things meeting the ground.

(Probably his neighbours.)

He spends a week in exhaustion that's only put off by shinobi pills and long-learned abilities to ignore sleep deprivation. Orochimaru - when the bastard bothers to show his face in daylight, anyway - tells him, voice light, the effects of sleep deprivation and why it's imperative that he doesn't become accustomed to fighting it off with pills when they're at home and have the chance to relax.

Jiraiya laughs in his face because like _he_ can talk. Orochimaru stiffens and glares, as if it offends him that he bothered to care about Jiraiya's mental well-being.

When Jiraiya gets home, the light's burnt out and he pouts, replaces it, and leaves it on again. His neighbours send complaints - have sent complaints since the first day - but he shrugs off his landlord and bites out that he's leaving it for a friend. It's a good luck charm. They asked for it.

(He's pretty sure his landlord knows exactly who the friend is, but the old man just places a hand on his arm and tells Jiraiya that he'll rack up a hell of a bill.)

Tsunade never asked for anything. She never said anything to him at all - just left like a leaf on the wind -, but still he leaves his light on as if she'll see it from whatever hole she's ran to in order to escape her memories and decide to come back.

He stops by her favourite grocery store and picks up the sake and chips they always shared after a long mission and eats alone. He spends mornings on his balcony watching the sunrise - something he doesn't do nearly enough at home - and every flicker and shadow (clouds, shinobi jumping rooftops, a flock of birds) makes his heart jump and stop. It's never her, and after months he stops being surprised.

He stops finding it so hard to sleep with artificial light pouring through his window and stops worrying about Orochimaru, holed up in some too-cold laboratory, examining ways to help them win future wars with deadly poisons and whatever else he does down there. He never stops worrying about Tsunade, always spending too long on missions because he's hoping he'll run into her and she'll tell him she's seen his light and she's ready to come home. And she'll tell him that she's done trying to lose memories at the bottom of a bottle and he'll laugh and say the same because he does the same thing whenever all he can see is blood and death and lost comrades.

He leaves the light on and hopes she'll find her way back.


End file.
